Four baby Siberian tigers unveiled at Seoul Grand Park

Siberian tigers, or Baekdusan tigers, as they're known here,... are an endangered species like most wild cats.

So it was an exciting moment for the Korean public... when they finally got to see four baby cubs that were born at a local zoo earlier this year.

Oh Soo-young gets us better acquainted with the little ones.

Fluffy, playful, and chock full of beans,... a litter of Siberian tiger cubs scamper around in a park near Seoul.

The Seoul Grand Park on Friday unveiled the four new tiger cubs,... who were born earlier this year to a nine-year-old tiger called Penza.

It was the first time in five years that tigers of their kind were born at the park,... and it's considered a rarity that a mother gives birth to four cubs at once.

"These cubs are just over five months old,... and are a healthy 30 kilograms. According to officials at the park, they remain super attached to their mother and are still in the process of forming their own personalities."

Siberian, or Azur, tigers are the largest subspecies of the cat family,... and most live in the eastern forests of Russia.

They also used to inhabit the Korean Peninsula,... which is why they're known locally as "Baekdusan tigers",... named after a famous mountain on the North Korea-China border.

However, due to intensive logging and development, as well as tiger poaching in China for use in traditional medicine,... only an estimated four-hundred Siberian tigers are left on our planet today.

That's why these purebred cubs come as a delight to the public.

"I've never seen baby tigers before. The babies were so cute."

"We normally think of tigers as strong and brave animals, and they also symbolise our country. But they're adorable in real life "

But these four baby cubs wouldn't have been born, without a bit of matchmaking.

"To procure the genes, we introduced Penza from Russia and Joseph from Czech Republic but Joseph wasn't up for it at first. So to awaken his male instincts, we got him to compete with a couple of other males,... then he began to see Penza and fell in love."

Various attempts to bring the parents together, the birth of the cubs in May and the early weeks of their lives,... have all been recorded by park officials.